Ever thought, ‘This is weird. I keep seeing news stories I agree with on Facebook’?

You’re not going nuts – a new study suggests that we tend to group together into ‘echo chambers’ where the people we follow tend to share our views.

The finding could explain why urban myths and outright lies – such as conspiracy theories – survive on Facebook.

Researcher Michela Del Vicario used Facebook’s Graph application to monitor information on conspiracy theories and science news over five years.

In a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Del Vicario said: ‘Using a massive quantitative analysis of Facebook, we show that information related to distinct narratives – conspiracy theories and scientific news – generates homogeneous and polarised communities (i.e., echo chambers) having similar information consumption patterns.’